Revisionism, racism, and anti-labor "progressivism"

I won't print that e-mail here but you can read it for
yourself on his blog. I think Alan's blog points out one of the most important
problems in progressive circles today--- the failure to confront racist,
anti-woman, anti-youth, anti-labor bias and bigotry:

I would encourage everyone to read Alan's blog. Alan raises
an important issue. I think we need to probe more deeply into this issue.

Alan touches on an important issue I think needs to be
expanded on: Revisionism in our Party, the Communist Party USA, and how this
revisionism undermines the struggles against racism and sexism and the struggle
for labor rights and for the rights of young workers.

I don't think it is coincidental Alan has pointed out that
Sam Webb stands in silence on this issue involving casino workers along with
those he views as his "coalition partners." These "coalition
partners" Webb has referred to are the upper echelons of organized labor
and the business interests dominant in the Democratic Party.

I had been a big supporter of Dennis Kucinich until I heard
Alan speak to this issue a few weeks ago at our union meeting. Alan was asked
by the president of our local why he made disparaging remarks about Kucinich
and refused to join the ranks of progressives in supporting Kucinich. His
answer was pretty much what he has written in his blog interspersed with a
personal experience concerning the struggle to achieve integration in the
public schools another issue Webb remained silent on until the United States
Supreme Court came down with its recent adverse ruling. Webb never brought our
Party into struggle to try and stop the United States Supreme Court from making
this terrible ruling that undermines years of struggles for civil rights
including our Party's very distinguished and honorable role in this struggle
against racism for human rights.

You see there is a pattern that has developed here.

The "pattern" is one created by revisionism.

The pattern involves refusing to engage in struggles at a time
when this engagement can determine the outcome over an issue. Webb comments
solely on regressive and reactionary things once these decisions have been
made. Making him sound like the most revolutionary of voices in denouncing
these things. The problem is the denouncements take place after-the-fact not in
time to organize united struggles.

The recent auto negotiations provide a classic example of
this. We didn't hear from Webb about the auto negotiations until his
"Report" to the National Committee of our Party was posted on the
CPUSA Web site after it had all become "a done deal." Alan has
impressed this "done deal" malarchy aspect of revisionism on us I
think. Sam Webb and Scott Marshall proclaimed auto an important component of
what our Party sees as key to industrial concentration. Both Sam Webb and Scott
Marshal went on vacations when they should have been working to bring the
issues forward in the months leading into the negotiating process. These were
the key months when our Party's initiative and activity was needed and this
involvement and activity never materialized.

Back to the casino issues.

Among the primary weaknesses of organized labor preventing
organizing the unorganized has been the complete and universal failure of the
labor movement to address: anti-communism, racism, sexism, and the rights of
young workers and their specific problems.

The rights of young workers and their specific problems.

This is a biggie here folks so pay attention to this. One of
the first jobs working people will have today as they enter the labor market is
working in casinos. Does it bode well for organized labor or those engaged in
"progressive" politics to remain silent as these young workers are
forced to, as Alan Maki has been almost alone in publicly pointing out, that
they go to work in these smoke-filled casinos at poverty wages without any
rights under state or federal labor laws.

Not only has Alan Maki been the foremost advocate of the
rights of casino workers he just about "owns" this issue with a
copyright stamped on it.

As everyone knows Alan Maki has been under constant attack
from Sam Webb who fronts for the Democratic Party like the Indian Tribes front
for organized crime with these casinos. Not coincidentally the issues are so
related they can't be separated. Webb refuses to address these issues of casino
workers as the problems they are in the labor movement and the Democratic
Party. Not once has he addressed these issues because he does not want to
offend his "coalition partners."

You can read Sam Webb's vicious attacks without any
substance to back up the malicious accusations against Alan Maki. I find Alan
Maki to be one of the most principled and articulate voices in the working
class movement and on the left today:

How does this attack by Sam Webb on Alan Maki stand up in
reality when Alan Maki's very public, transparent and open activity on an
entire range of issues including defending the rights of casino workers is
examined? Webb, forgive my French here, but Webb comes out looking and smelling
like a complete asshole. No wonder Alan has made fun of Webb and encouraged Webb
to circulate his attack widely.

Sam Webb has never addressed the problems of casino workers.
Alan Maki is actively engaged working on this issue in a way most of us have
never seen a union organizing drive conducted. A rank and file organizing
effort without precedent since the 1930's before most of us were born.

We have one of these casinos right here in Duluth. Several
of my friends work in this casino. What they tell me about the way they get
treated is terrible. They also tell me Alan Maki is viewed by casino workers as
a folk hero of sorts. How do casino workers view Sam Webb? Chances are they
have never met him and don't even know his name.

Sam Webb's manner in using the Young Communist League blog
for his viciously racist and anti-labor attack on Alan Maki really underlines
how corrupting an influence revisionism has become in our Party that the head
of the Communist Party USA would be involved in attacking a leader of the labor
movement in the midst of an important union organizing campaign.

The attack on Alan Maki posted on the YCL blog really
demonstrates how revisionism blinds us to the real issues. Alan Maki doesn't
care about what Sam Webb or these revisionists say about him anymore than what
he cares about what leaders of the Minnesota and Michigan Democratic Parties
have to say about him. Why should he? If these kinds of insults could be
intimidating factors it wouldn't make him much of an advocate for the rights of
casino workers.

If Alan doesn't care, there is ample reason why the rest of
us sould care about Sam Webb's vicious attacks on Alan Maki because others are
now Webb's target, too- for many of the same reasons- including myself. Most of
the members of the Communist Party USA in Minnesota and Michigan have sided
with Alan Maki in this struggle against revisionism. One writer suggests that
revisionism already has our Party on the road to liquidation. A charge I agree
with completely observing the destruction of the Communist Party here in
Minnesota. Because of Webb's longstanding feud with Alan Maki it is difficult
trying to convince many working people to work with us now. I would point out
that Alan Maki has been the voice of the Communist Party on just about every
issue of importance to working people. He took up the struggle against home
foreclosures long before any politician would acknowledge the issue. He was out
fighting to prevent this dirty war from starting as he traveled to every corner
of this state and was attacked by every right-wing, warmongering creep around.
Alan Maki stood up and organized the opposition to peat mining in the Big Bog
and he stood up to United States Steel's intent to continue polluting the
waters of northern Minnesota.

I ask a very simple question: Where has Sam Webb and his
revisionist friends been through all of this? Nary any sight of them. They
wouldn't even step forward as those working in the iron ore mines and taconite
industry were faced with the threat from Cleveland Cliffs to bring in scabs!
Alan went onto Cleveland Cliff's property risking arrest to photograph the
mobile homes Cleveland Cliffs brought in to house the scabs exposing this to
the world. Now they decry, "The Minnesota Problem." "he
Minnesota Problem.""The Minnesota Problem" is a problem of
revisionism and betrayal of the working class by Sam Webb who pretended to be
working in league with Gus Hall then like a Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell he
trashed Hall's books after he died... what Webb didn't sell off through
liquidations for pennies he tossed into the dumpster. Again, who brought this
issue forward for all of us to hear about? Alan Maki. Not a peep of protest
from these perverted leaders of the Young Communist League. As far as I can see
they are as perverted in their personal lifestyles which dictate their
political morals as they are in their thinking.

Consider this:

The main victims of racist discrimination in the casino
industry are young workers of color. Many are young women workers. Like my
friends who work in the Fond-Du-Luth Casino here in Duluth, Minnesota many are
young Native American single mothers having a very difficult time making ends
meet even as they work fourteen and sixteen hour days. I used to have to put in
these kinds of hours myself as a single-mom trying to care for my five children
as they were growing... let me assure Webb this kind of life is no picnic and
the heck if I am going to stand for Webb using these kinds of conditions as
something less than a footnote in his report to the National Committee. Webb
told some big-business publication he has problems purchasing pajamas for his
daughter. We are talking about working people not being able to afford to feed
their kids who don't even know what it is like to wear a pajamas which weren't
purchased from a rummage sale. Let Webb and his daughters go to work in one of
these casinos. Better yet, let Webb's daughters ship off to Iraq since he
thinks its alright for congress to keep funding this war as the Democrats use
this war to play their little games. I have never heard of a Communist Party
leader siding with the voices of business and imperialism the way Webb does.

Keep in mind Sam Webb attacks Alan Maki using the Young
Communist League's blog not the CPUSA web site. I think we need to ask why?

This blog of the Young Communist League has never addressed
the issues of casino workers! Many of whom are young workers! Many of these
casino workers are young women workers. Many have small babies. Most of these
young workers are working for the first time in their lives. This is their
first experience working in the real world. This is their first experience with
human exploitation. What an experience it is!

Young workers:

Working in
smoke-filled casinos

Working without
any rights

Not a mention of
this by Communist Party USA Chair Sam Webb or the leaders of the YCL.

As Communists we should all be hanging our heads in
embarrassment such a creep heads up our Party.

In his revisionist outlook of the world Webb talks about
"the old stage" and "the new stage" of the class struggle
when working people are fighting to keep their heads above water and a roof
over their heads under the same old rotten capitalist system that is just as
rotten at any stage.

Alan Maki was fighting for peace and social justice and was
helping to found the Young Workers Liberation League paving the way for the
creation of the Young Communist League when Sam Webb was out partying at St.
Francis Xavier University as people were having cluster bombs dropped on them
and being napalmed in Vietnam.

In fact, by his own admission, Sam Webb was hiding out from
the draft behind getting a university education in Canada. You call this a
"Communist leader?"

Alan Maki stood up to the war machine of Richard Nixon when
he was drafted to fight what Gus Hall called, "this dirty imperialist
war."

If Webb's attack on Alan Maki isn't the pinnacle of typical
perverted, cowardly revisionism, I don't know what is.

Webb represents the embodiment of a hypocritical racist and
bigot parading around under the guise of being progressive. Webb certainly is
no Communist.

Alan Maki is too nice of a guy to say these things as they
need to be said.

Sam Webb is referring to me as "that bitch from
Duluth."

I am just a "bitch" with two sons the military
recruiters are constantly pestering to join their mercenary army. A mother with
three children who can't find jobs and two children still in school. I am going
to say what is on my mind I don't give a darn who cares. I certainly don't care
what a revisionist puke like Sam Webb has to say about me.

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We need a vanguard Communist Party USA - one that rejects the Imperialist 2-party monopoly, stands on its own two feet and fights for the working class in honesty and integrity.We used to be that party, and we can be again. But first we must purge the cancer of revisionism and Browderism from our ranks, that would have us betray our fellow workers to the Imperialist ruling class for the chance to sit at the table with them. We must carve it out, and taking a cue from William Z Foster, save our party by expelling those that seek to poison it.